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Bishopric of Hildesheim
The Bishopric of Hildesheim is a Roman Catholic diocese based in Hildesheim in southeastern Lower Saxony Germany. It was founded in the early 9th Century. The Bishopric of Hildesheim The Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne intended to erect a diocese at Elze (Aulica). However his successor Louis I the Pious decided to establish the diocese at nearby Hildesheim some time between 814 and 822, after supposedly receiving a miracle. The new cathedral was dedicated to the Virgin Mary. The diocese was bordered by those of Verden to the north, Halberstadt to the east, Minden and Paderborn to the west, and the Mainz to the south of which Hildesheim was made suffragan. The new diocese received generous grants from the Carolingians, later German kings and other powerful magnates. The bishops quickly gained various immunities, judicial independence and feudal sovereignty and the bishopric gained in wealth and power. The reigns of the Bishops St Bernard III of Sommerescheburg (993 - 1022), St Gotthard of Ritenbach (1022 - 1038) and Hezilo of Saxony (1045 - 1079) in particular greatly developed the spiritual and artistic culture of the city. After many years of dispute with the Archbishops of Mainz, the Abbey of Gandersheim was declared to be in the diocese of Hildesheim. After the fall of Duke Henry III the Lion of Saxony in 1180, the bishopric obtained its political independence, and the bishops gained the title "Prince of the Empire" in 1235. The bishops themselves slowly became restricted in their power through the growing influence of the city of Hildesheim and the great privileges of the Cathedral chapter. The bishops also came into violent conflicts with domestic and foreign adversaries; the greatest foes being the Welfs of Brunswick. In 1367 Bishop Gerard of Berg defeated Duke Magnus I of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel and his allies at the Battle of Dinklar. However the warfare continued and the spiritual conditions of the diocese began to suffer greatly. It was only Bishop Magnus of Saxe-Lauenburg (1424 - 1452) who first managed to gain some semblance of peace and piety in the prince-bishopric by establishing treaties with neighbouring princes and entering into concords with local populations. During this time long-agitated reforms were implemented at the monasteries were restored to former spirituality by the efforts of the Benedictines at Bursfeld Abbey. After Magnus' death in 1452, the reforms were discarded and conflict broke out again with greater violence than ever before. During the Great Diocesan War, the prince-bishopric was thoroughly crushed by the Dukes of Brunswick. The COmpact of Quedlinburg in 1523 left only three districts, out of twenty seven, to the prince-bishopric while the rest came under the rule of the Brunswicks. The once considerable power of the diocese was ended. Internal discord resulted in the spread of the Reformation in the dicoese during the 16th Century. In 1539 Bishop Valentine of Teuteben (1537 - 1551) held a synod to address the issues plaguing the bishopric without any effect. In 1542 the city of Hildesheim converted to Lutheranism. The Dukes of Brunswick vigorously introduced the Reformation into the territories of the diocese within their borders. The bishops successfully defended the remainder of the Catholic population from the attacks of the city of Hildesheim. In 1551 the Protestant Frederick of Denmark became bishop. It was only his premature death in 1556 which stopped the impending secularisation of the diocese. Burkhard of Oberg (1557 - 1573) spent the entirety of his reign protecting the little remaining Catholic population and property. After Burkhard's death, the cathedral of Hildesheim elected members of the powerful Catholic Bavarian branch of the House of Wittelsbach as bishops, a process which ended in 1761. The Bavarian Wittelsbachs also consistently held other sees such as the Archbishopric of Cologne during this period to effectively check the spread of the Reformation. The cathedral chapter was given to Lutherans in 1634 during the Thirty Years' War, but the diocese was regained by Catholic forces in 1643. The desire of the bishops to regain the lost areas were thwarted by the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 which ceded all areas which were Protestant by 1624 to Protestants. In 1803 the secular territories of the Bishopric of Hildesheim were secularised to the Kingdom of Prussia although the dicoese itself continued to exist. The catholic chapter and the numerous abbeys were, however, suppressed. Hildesheim itself was included in the Kingdom of Westphalia from 1807, and the Kingdom of Hanover from 1813. The borders of the diocese were defined in 1824 to include all Catholics in Hanover east of the River Weser, and in 1834 was enlarged to also include all the territory of the Duchy of Brunswick. See also *List of Bishops of Hildesheim Hildesheim Category:Diocese of Hildesheim